Flavor? Funny things happen to foods when sauteed or grilled. With meat it's the Maillard reaction that changes the amino acids to form new molecules. This changes it's flavor. With vegetables you have carmelizing and other stuff going on.

Some soups like, oh, Chicken Noodle are such that you want to have vegetable chunks. Other soups such as black bean soup call for a mire pois (onions, carrots and celery) chopped small, sauteed, and the end result will be a very soft, barely detectable texture in the mouth (for the vegetables, at least).

For the most part in stews and soups, texture is handled by the size the veggies are cut, and when they are added, e.g. never add green peas up front if you want them to be green and whole at the end of a simmer. But cooking the veggies up front softens them and may or may not flavor them, depending on how much browning you've got. This is especially important for garlic, because browned garlic can be a bad thing. But soften the veggies by sauteing with plenty of heated oil (toss to coat) and a bit of salt. This is called sweating, but not all sweating is identified as such in recipies.

And there are probably soups that just don't simmer long enough to cook whole or large-chunk vegetables that're hard, such as carrots and potatoes/tubers

your answer... if we really want to "get into it"... have to do with food-snobs and anal-retentive food-followers.

you see.... the whole idea of "caramelizing" your veggies, or using the so-called "maillard reaction" to sear your meat and seal in the juices and add "sugar" to your meat, has been proven a myth (in a way). Searing your meat only adds some "carbonized" taste to your tongue, and you are "taught" that this is a good thing. why? because "carbon" taste better then raw flesh!

it is also a "myth" that searing meat helps to "seal" in the juices. this is just plain wrong... but people love to color their "fire" and cooking with myths.

It is true, that burning your veggies helps "bring out their natural sugar"..... oooohhhhh good for you!

so the "great" culinary artisans have taught you to burn your veggies and meat for flavor.... to "caramelize" them... (so to speak).

LOL!!!!

its all simple chemistry folks. in reality, when you burn your flesh, the so-called "maillard" reaction simply describes the flavor of carbonized, burnt, flesh.... with little nutritional value. (there is some protein/sugar chemistry involved, but it is not worth the spit in your mouth).

you like your veggies burnt? cuz they taste better? more "carmelized" or so they say...... fine!

but don't use words like "caramelize" or "maillard reaction" to describe the simple idiocy of modern day "follow the idiot" truthiness of food chemistry and the pitfalls thereof.

hint: "thruthiness" has become a new word, that has not showed up in your stupid dictionary as of late.

big fat ugly hint: "raw" foods have more nutritional value than "carmelized", "maillard-reaction"protein/carbohydrate sources.... but don't let this simple fact get in the way of big-fat-food-snobs and their control of what you eat.

I'm sorry. A lot of cooking traditions can be dismissed as myths, but the Maillard reaction and carmelization cannot. Both are very real, and both have a significant impact on flavor.

Take some raw sugar and turn it into caramel. It would be very difficult to argue that 1) it hasn't changed flavor significantly, or 2) that the flavor isn't better. Sear a steak. The resulting flavors are more complex and generally considered to be better tasting.

The Maillard reaction is also not the same as burning the meat. The Maillard reaction describes a browning process. Once you've burned the meat, it's neither brown nor tasty. The Maillard reaction is a reaction between a sugar and an amino acid. It's not just burning, and strictly speaking, heat's not always required (though for general cooking it is).

The Maillard reaction is also resonsible for much of the flavor (and color) of coffee, chocolate, cola, and toast.

A lot of cooking traditions can be summed up as snobbery, but the Maillard reaction isn't one of them. It's been used since before cooking snobbery even existed. Products of the Maillard reaction are also one of the foundations of the flavoring industry; picking and choosing Maillard products to achieve the desired taste.

The argument that we've simply been taught to enjoy the flavors resulting from the Maillard reaction is no more valid than the argument that we've been simply been taught to enjoy the flavor of spices. It's not just snobbery or training. It actually tastes better.

I can saute a veggie and sear a steak without char. In fact, the point is to get as much caramelization as possible without 'making charcoal' (as my chef instructors used to say).

Try an experiment:
Take a chicken thigh, a carrot, a piece of celery and half an onion. Cut up the veggies. Put it all in cold water , add a tablespoon of oil, and simmer until the chicken is cooked through.

Now take the same ingredients, but saute the chicken in the oil, pull it when it's brown, saute the veggies in the chicken dripping, then add water (same amount as before) and simmer.

to answer the original question about sauteing and soups. I think saute is a very overwrought term in common recipes, especially for soups. Sauteing will carmelize and change the color of your product which is often not the desired result. Most recipes would be better off to say 'sweat the veggies' but the average home-cook may not understand, so they say saute...

The thread of this discussion got off onto searing meat. I agree that it is a myth about locking in juices, but it seams that folks so far have only focused on the resulting taste. Well it does change the flavor of that outer layer of meat, but to me, more importantly, it changes the appearance and the texture into something much more desirable. It is true that we eat with our eyes. Texture and mouth feel vary from person to person, to me it is mightily important. Its why I love fresh mushrooms but cannot tolerate the canned variety...

You're trying to get a Malliard reaction with the veggies, but the problem is that the Malliard reaction usually needs a large amount of energy. If you try to cook in hot water or with steam, water will never exceed a certain temperature and so you won't be able to get Malliard reaction. However, when you saute something, you use oil, which allows the temperature to get high enough to reach the Malliard reaction.

You're trying to get a Malliard reaction with the veggies, but the problem is that the Malliard reaction usually needs a large amount of energy. If you try to cook in hot water or with steam, water will never exceed a certain temperature and so you won't be able to get Malliard reaction. However, when you saute something, you use oil, which allows the temperature to get high enough to reach the Malliard reaction.

Generally, the Maillard reaction requires 120°C. However, you can obtain the Maillard reaction through aging as well. For example, in vintage champagne, the Maillard reaction is present, even though it was not heated to 120°C; storing the champagne for several years compensates for the lack of heat. So, the Maillard reaction can take place without high temperatures, but you have to cook it for a *much* longer time.

This is the reason caramelized onions are sweeter than the regular; the proteins and amino acids to react with the sugar, aka the Maillard reaction. But to do so, it takes either a large amount of heat or a long time, and caramelized onions can only be cooked at low temperatures, or else they'll burn. That's why you need to cook it for about half an hour. (It's a pain in the ass, I know.)

And, since caramelized onions are quite sweet, they work well with all kinds of fruit. Sometimes, gourmet restaurants serve strawberry bisque with caramellized onions, or crepes with strawberries and caramelized onions. I've made crepes this way myself, and have to say that they're ambrosial.

Generally, the Maillard reaction requires 120°C. However, you can obtain the Maillard reaction through aging as well. For example, in vintage champagne, the Maillard reaction is present, even though it was not heated to 120°C; storing the champagne for several years compensates for the lack of heat. So, the Maillard reaction can take place without high temperatures, but you have to cook it for a *much* longer time.

This is the reason caramelized onions are sweeter than the regular; the proteins and amino acids to react with the sugar, aka the Maillard reaction. But to do so, it takes either a large amount of heat or a long time, and caramelized onions can only be cooked at low temperatures, or else they'll burn. That's why you need to cook it for about half an hour. (It's a pain in the ass, I know.)

The 'Maillard reaction' (relating to food) is far too complex for generalizations. To give an average temperature for these reactions (maybe as many as 800 reactions in some instances) may give a false impression. Certainly, as Arrhenius has proved, reaction rate is affected by temperature, and as cooks, we know that the higher the temperature of the fat, the quicker the food is cooked (or burnt!).
The reason we fry food is to carry out this group of reactions, the results depending on temperature, water content and pH, to mention only three. But to say that generally the Maillard reaction needs 120°C (or whatever you may read, as there are as many temperatures quoted as commentators) is misleading, and doesn't fit with the browning involved with braising, for example (usually at 100°C because of the amount of water present).

As mentioned by others, browning of meat is a different matter (or can be). High temperatures tend to involve pyrolysis (makin' charcoal', as one person put it) while controlled cooking uses the Maillard reaction to good effect. Same with vegetables. Browning veg will provide the cook with 'roasted' flavours which will be completely lacking from a pure stewing process. As with meat, most (but not all) flavours are produced from the Maillard reactions, between amino groups and carbonyl groups, but not exclusively. Frying will produce the most flavour, stewing will produce far less, so browning the veg before stewing it will provide the best of both worlds. But it will depend on the result required, some soups will not want roasted flavours. Horses for courses, but unfortunately, ubiquitous sauteing is usually the norm!
just thoughts
watt
BTW, onions become sweet because the complex carbohydrates stored in the corm are being broken down to smaller sugar molecules.
[quote]

I think that people generally like the taste of food that they grew up eating.
I myself make food the way my Mother taught me, and I love it, so do my kids.
I have seen people that eat totally burnt BBQ'd sausages, which to me is crazy, but they love them.
Never mind this Maillard stuff, it is a learned thing from childhood experience that gives us our preferences.
So, as children we have each been "programmed", in respect of how our food is prepared and cooked, and we pass that on.
Sounds crazy, but true.

You saute to sweeten and cook your veggies so that they will taste better. Raw veggies in a soup, for example, are the same as not ever cooking the veggies and eating them outside the soup. When you saute the malliard effect, ( eltonyo's myth) goes to work to sweeten your veggies and meats( which of course when you put meat in soups you will cook the meat unless you eat raw meat and want to be a case of salmonella poisoning and parasite infections which will eat your face off.) Enjoy.